No, discussion is good. I encourage you to continue. I may not agree, but this is interesting, and we're learning something else about conventions that we're not likely to get from the powers-that-be.

Wouldn't ghosting be a little easier to figure out when someone comes in befuddled and someone else without a badge strolls through with purpose or with a costume on?

Well if you guys feel this is the appropriate thread for it, sure:

Some background on me: Again, I am not an AX staffer. Anything I say regarding the inner workings of AX are purely my own speculation. I am acquainted and friends with many of them; however, they are mostly lower-level staff. And I have staffed ALA, 3 years for ConOps, and last year for Artist Alley.

While it may seem easy to differentiate a cosplayer without a badge and a wide-eyed normal person, one will catch far more false positives than actual ghosters. Many cosplayers will hide their badge for photos and often forget to put them back in a viewable spot, for example. Usually they don't realize it until they need to enter a badge-only area.

This may be okay, but knowing how 3rd party security staff have acted in the past, they may come off as a bit too heavy-handed enforcing such a rule. Only AX staffers will probably recognize the difference properly. However, it seems to me AX is hinting at manpower/experience problems, and I would not trust the volunteers that show up at-con with little (if any) prior training with badge checking (aka interacting with people).

In a past thread, I remember discussing at length at how the customer service skills of at-con volunteers are completely unknown until the con, and how the customer service skills of stressed out AX staff will degrade as time goes on if they not trained to handle the stress (which can be caused by manpower problems, sudden schedule changes, etc -- which happens more often than it probably should).

In short, I don't trust the current AX staff to enforce such a policy without causing more damage to the currently tentative relationship between AX and its attendees.

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Thanks to all for helping with the AX 2012 Gathering List! Hope it gets better next year!

Personally, I would have something against ghosting IF SPJA/AX was good stewards with the money they made from membership. But as I can show otherwise, I really don't have anything against people who do it.

W O W
I am speechless and amazed that a non-profit, "promote Japanese animation", organization is spending $390k, close to 20% of it's revenue, on a law firm that pulls this type of legal bullsh!t and bullying of other conventions. Looks like AX is the Monster Cable of the anime con world.

absolutely incredible. not even taking in account that they paid lattanzio a silly amount of money to wreck their organization's finances.

W O W
I am speechless and amazed that a non-profit, "promote Japanese animation", organization is spending $390k, close to 20% of it's revenue, on a law firm that pulls this type of legal bullsh!t and bullying of other conventions. Looks like AX is the Monster Cable of the anime con world.

absolutely incredible. not even taking in account that they paid lattanzio a silly amount of money to wreck their organization's finances.

Call me all too nice and forgiving, but I'm of the belief that even though SPJA was the initial party that sent the info to the law firm, the law firm did not contact SPJA about their actions and subsequent events until people were all pissed off at AX already.

The law firm was just doing their job. I know in the USA, not enforcing a copyright will result in the loss of that copyright. (This is also partly why doujinshi isn't as popular here as it is in Japan). Not sure about trademarks though. Someone will have to fill me in there, since this was a trademark issue.

The firm was probably erring on the side of caution, but ended up screwing AX's reputation in the process.

Also, LAWYERS. Damn expensive, those things. I'm not surprised that's how much they ask for their services.

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Thanks to all for helping with the AX 2012 Gathering List! Hope it gets better next year!

Call me all too nice and forgiving, but I'm of the belief that the law firm did not contact AX staff about this developing event until people were all pissed off at AX already.

The law firm was just doing their job, since not enforcing a copyright will result in the loss of that copyright. They were probably erring on the side of caution, but ended up screwing AX's reputation in the process.

Also, LAWYERS. Damn expensive, those things. I'm not surprised that's how much they ask for their services.

I think you are thinking trademark. Copyright is not like that. But honestly it's all beside the point. The point is the expense. It's one example of how money is wasted. And for what?

Just to put it in perspective, if you paid $50. for your badge, that means that around $10. went to that law firm to try to shut down or stop a convention with a similar sounding name on the opposite side of the US. Another $3 to $4 went to pay the CEO's salary. And so on. And that's just what we know, or what is publicly verifiable. But how much of that $50. goes to things we care about?

It doesn't 'come with the territory', you can check the balance sheets for the other large (more than 20,000 members) conventions and they don't seem to have these kinds of waste.

I think you are thinking trademark. Copyright is not like that. But honestly it's all beside the point. The point is the expense. It's one example of how money is wasted. And for what?

Just to put it in perspective, if you paid $50. for your badge, that means that around $10. went to that law firm to try to shut down or stop a convention with a similar sounding name on the opposite side of the US. Another $3 to $4 went to pay the CEO's salary. And so on. And that's just what we know, or what is publicly verifiable. But how much of that $50. goes to things we care about?

It doesn't 'come with the territory', you can check the balance sheets for the other large (more than 20,000 members) conventions and they don't seem to have these kinds of waste.

Yeah, I realized the TM/Copyright thing right after my post and edited my post.

I'm no lawyer. I hardly know anything about legal costs and everything, so I'll have to defer to someone else more knowledgeable. In that regard, I have a question: Is it possible that AX has found itself in a situation where potential legal liabilities could cause a law firm to charge more than normal?

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Thanks to all for helping with the AX 2012 Gathering List! Hope it gets better next year!

"Is it possible that AX has found itself in a situation where potential legal liabilities could cause a law firm to charge more than normal?"
Yes, but not that law firm, you're probably thinking of a different episode.
Go back to the financial document I linked to earlier, see:
page 10, item 10b
page 10, item 24c

It was going to be "Evangelion and Psychology: An Open Forum and Roundtable Discussion". It was supposed to be an open discussion about the Evangelion franchise and the (obvious) influences from the field of psychology. I wanted to give fans of the series a chance to express and share their knowledge about whatever psych aspects they know of and apply that towards understanding the series a little better. (And maybe attract someone towards that particular field of study.

I was going to lead discussion by giving a short 10-15min. introductory PowerPoint presentation and offering talking points for the remainder of the panel. I was also going to offer my perspective as a student nurse, sharing whatever I knew about modern clinical psychiatry, mental growth and development, and my experiences working at a psych/mental health unit.

But since that was thrown out, I guess I'll just focus on perfecting my Masquerade skit. Maybe at another con...(-3-)

That's a shame, that sounded like a really good panel and really informative as well...but, no as long as Marc Perez gets his 30 minutes to look like even more of a tool then who cares about fan panels like that one -_-

EDIT: So just for the heck of it, I made a post in the AX Forums about the Bad Jokes 'panel'...how long before one of the Kool Aid drinkers like Ren Tan defends the panel?

It was going to be "Evangelion and Psychology: An Open Forum and Roundtable Discussion". It was supposed to be an open discussion about the Evangelion franchise and the (obvious) influences from the field of psychology. I wanted to give fans of the series a chance to express and share their knowledge about whatever psych aspects they know of and apply that towards understanding the series a little better. (And maybe attract someone towards that particular field of study.

I was going to lead discussion by giving a short 10-15min. introductory PowerPoint presentation and offering talking points for the remainder of the panel. I was also going to offer my perspective as a student nurse, sharing whatever I knew about modern clinical psychiatry, mental growth and development, and my experiences working at a psych/mental health unit.

But since that was thrown out, I guess I'll just focus on perfecting my Masquerade skit. Maybe at another con...(-3-)

It would have been a decent panel. Too bad it got rejected. AX/SPJA thought it was too deep for them.

It was going to be "Evangelion and Psychology: An Open Forum and Roundtable Discussion". It was supposed to be an open discussion about the Evangelion franchise and the (obvious) influences from the field of psychology. I wanted to give fans of the series a chance to express and share their knowledge about whatever psych aspects they know of and apply that towards understanding the series a little better. (And maybe attract someone towards that particular field of study.

I was going to lead discussion by giving a short 10-15min. introductory PowerPoint presentation and offering talking points for the remainder of the panel. I was also going to offer my perspective as a student nurse, sharing whatever I knew about modern clinical psychiatry, mental growth and development, and my experiences working at a psych/mental health unit.

But since that was thrown out, I guess I'll just focus on perfecting my Masquerade skit. Maybe at another con...(-3-)

This sounds like it would have been a really interesting panel, and a good way to learn a little about psychology. I think it would have been interesting to hear about your experiences in the psych health unit...
Hope you're able to put this on at another con, in any case.

My Sailor Moon panel was initially rejected. However, I wrote an appeal to programming @ anime-expo.org and we were able to compromise a timeslot. I reminded them of the importance of this panel to Anime Expo's initial mission and vision. Though we're a week out, it's still worth a shot to contact them. Your cerebral discussion panel of Evangelion is almost an anime con staple - most cons have an Evangelion analysis panel. Good luck to you if you decide to appeal (or anyone else who wishes too).

I think you are thinking trademark. Copyright is not like that. But honestly it's all beside the point. The point is the expense. It's one example of how money is wasted. And for what?

Just to put it in perspective, if you paid $50. for your badge, that means that around $10. went to that law firm to try to shut down or stop a convention with a similar sounding name on the opposite side of the US. Another $3 to $4 went to pay the CEO's salary. And so on. And that's just what we know, or what is publicly verifiable. But how much of that $50. goes to things we care about?

It doesn't 'come with the territory', you can check the balance sheets for the other large (more than 20,000 members) conventions and they don't seem to have these kinds of waste.

To be fair, it almost does seem to come with the territory when it comes to non-profit organizations. I'm also not quite surprised about the lawyer fees as lawyers can be extremely expensive along with CEO's.

Full disclosure, I'm very cynical about the entire corporate culture especially where CEO's get paid ridiculous amounts of money for what little they bring to the table.

To be fair, it almost does seem to come with the territory when it comes to non-profit organizations. I'm also not quite surprised about the lawyer fees as lawyers can be extremely expensive along with CEO's.

Full disclosure, I'm very cynical about the entire corporate culture especially where CEO's get paid ridiculous amounts of money for what little they bring to the table.

Lawyers are expensive, but the money can often be saved by not resorting to lawyers as the first option. The cited case is a perfect example of this.

Otakon, Fanime, Sakuracon, etc. yes they do have to hire lawyers and pay legal fees, but they are not hiring boutique law firms to go after similarly named conventions or anything similar. That is the difference between prudence and waste.

Likewise nearly all other conventions even in the 20,000+ person range are volunteer-based, few if any people get paid. Look up all the financials if you doubt this (Otakon, Fanime, Sakuracon, etc.)